Skip to main content

Good Bye, Politics


“There is a longstanding body of psychological evidence that shows that lecturing people that they are wrong, listing a bunch of facts that conclusively demonstrate that, and busting the myths spread by irresponsible political opponents not only fails to change minds, it makes people more fixed in their views.”  These words of Sonia Sudha in her recent Guardian article, ‘Outrage makes you feel good, but doesn’t change minds,’ set me on a contemplation course like self-help books used to do once upon a time.

When the contemplation was over I spoke to a few friends over phone, something which I hardly do these days.  I had chosen relative solitude for a huge variety of reasons one of which is erosion of trust in people.  The phone conversations turned out to be quite rewarding unlike what I had expected.  The friends were candid in telling me that my political views are out of tune with popular moods or things similar.  In short, I wasn’t achieving anything good by writing them. 


There are good friends still, I thought.  I mean it’s so hard to find people who are not politically correct even while talking to friends.  And I’m lucky.  I put Sonia Sodha’s observation and those of my friends together and decided to stay from current politics for a while as far as blogging is concerned.  I can do better with books and other really worthwhile stuff.  You might even find me writing blogs for some insurance companies which are ready to pay for the publicity. 

[Not a permanent decision, however]

Comments

  1. Better to leave politics to politicians! There is so much else to figure out in life!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To politicians and media professionals. 😀 Indeed life will be better far away from politics.

      Delete
  2. Good to know about your decision...whatever the reason is.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I too had same views like you had. So I was always glad that someone says those in public. People are not ready to think. They always wants to stay in their illusory world. So you do not belong to their world and they refuses to accept you. But it was great to see someone telling the truth straight forward

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is one way of the old giving way to the new. Mathematics has no feelings, you see 😃

      Delete
  4. How much I liked reading your views on politics among other topics. As a reader,although a reclusive one, I would like you to continue writing your views regardless of unsolicited opinions. Never say never. But that's just another opinion

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have to stop writing politics the moment you are seen as anything other than a citizen. India does not have citizens now, it has Hindus or Muslims or Christians. We and They. Even highly educated people have succumbed to the delight of enemy-baiting.

      Delete
  5. With age comes wisdom,but sometimes age alone comes. Have to wait and acquire knowledge and wisdom like you to speak like you. Which is not possible for anyone in the near future for we all have a rush hour these times

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wisdom comes to those who are willing to receive her. You will have your time. Anyway I don't consider myself wise.

      Delete
  6. "When the contemplation was over I spoke to a few friends over phone, something which I hardly do these days. I had chosen relative solitude for a huge variety of reasons one of which is erosion of trust in people"
    Glad to note that you broke the stalemate...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was certainly heartening to see that friends remained friends even after a two year-long silence from my part.

      Delete
  7. This is definitely not the best of times to engage in political dialog. Especially if you are already popular and have a readership. The beauty of blogging is that you can say what you want if you are a nobody, since nobody will likely ever find out. With your insights and depth, it will be a huge service if you start writing about books and reading, for example. There is no point in getting into trouble defending your truth against hoodlums.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Ugly Duckling

Source: Acting Company A. A. Milne’s one-act play, The Ugly Duckling , acquired a classical status because of the hearty humour used to present a profound theme. The King and the Queen are worried because their daughter Camilla is too ugly to get a suitor. In spite of all the devious strategies employed by the King and his Chancellor, the princess remained unmarried. Camilla was blessed with a unique beauty by her two godmothers but no one could see any beauty in her physical appearance. She has an exquisitely beautiful character. What use is character? The King asks. The play is an answer to that question. Character plays the most crucial role in our moral science books and traditional rhetoric, religious scriptures and homilies. When it comes to practical life, we look for other things such as wealth, social rank, physical looks, and so on. As the King says in this play, “If a girl is beautiful, it is easy to assume that she has, tucked away inside her, an equally beauti...

Helpless Gods

Illustration by Gemini Six decades ago, Kerala’s beloved poet Vayalar Ramavarma sang about gods that don’t open their eyes, don’t know joy or sorrow, but are mere clay idols. The movie that carried the song was a hit in Kerala in the late 1960s. I was only seven when the movie was released. The impact of the song, like many others composed by the same poet, sank into me a little later as I grew up. Our gods are quite useless; they are little more than narcissists who demand fresh and fragrant flowers only to fling them when they wither. Six decades after Kerala’s poet questioned the potency of gods, the Chief Justice of India had a shoe flung at him by a lawyer for the same thing: questioning the worth of gods. The lawyer was demanding the replacement of a damaged idol of god Vishnu and the Chief Justice wondered why gods couldn’t take care of themselves since they are omnipotent. The lawyer flung his shoe at the Chief Justice to prove his devotion to a god. From Vayalar of 196...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...

Our gods must have died laughing

A friend forwarded a video clip this morning. It is an extract from a speech that celebrated Malayalam movie actor Sreenivasan delivered years ago. In the year 1984, Sreenivasan decided to marry the woman he was in love with. But his career in movies had just started and so he hadn’t made much money. Knowing his financial condition, another actor, Innocent, gave him Rs 400. Innocent wasn’t doing well either in the profession. “Alice’s bangle,” Innocent said. He had pawned or sold his wife’s bangle to get that amount for his friend. Then Sreenivasan went to Mammootty, who eventually became Malayalam’s superstar, to request for help. Mammootty gave him Rs 2000. Citing the goodness of the two men, Sreenivasan said that the wedding necklace ( mangalsutra ) he put ceremoniously around the neck of his Hindu wife was funded by a Christian (Innocent) and a Muslim (Mammootty). “What does religion matter?” Sreenivasan asks in the video. “You either refuse to believe in any or believe in a...